


Tripping into a Rhythm

by magdalyna



Category: Bandom
Genre: M/M, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 08:58:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magdalyna/pseuds/magdalyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Telepathy isn't all it's cracked up be, Spencer decides.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tripping into a Rhythm

He flicks the glossy magazine page on the couch in the front lounge. Ryan scribbles away in his journal. Jon is listening to music with headphones on. 

Oh fuck yes. 

Spencer eyes Ryan who blinks in frustration. 

Not again, he thinks at Ryan who nods. 

You would think he’d learn by now, Ryan thinks back crossly. 

Brendon, from the sound and oh, god, look of it, is jerking off again in his bunk. 

Spencer gives a little sigh. I’ll go talk to him after, no worries he thinks at Ryan who is slightly flushed by now. Spencer thinks hard about dirty scuffed up shoes and acid rain, dead kittens, anything to counteract what Brendon is sending out. Ryan has stopped writing. 

Jon hasn’t moved an inch. 

||

Spencer can’t really remember a time before he and Ryan could read each other’s minds. Logically he knows that there was a time in his life when Ryan wasn’t in it, but it might as well have never happened. One day they met and then a few hours later, there Ryan was. There he was, too, riding the wave of new perceptions that Ryan had to offer. 

They’ve stuck by each other ever since. 

It freaked them out at first, of course. Not being able to tell where you began and someone else started, your thought patterns shifting, that got to them. Learning secrets about someone they never meant to share. But they made parts of their minds closed off, established boundaries. They made it work. Soon, they didn’t want it any other way.

||

Brendon was another matter completely. 

Brent had said something about bringing in this kid from band to practice with him, and they had agreed to it mostly because it couldn’t hurt and they were bored. 

So there they all were and Brent had to leave for a few minutes to do something and then there were strange non-Ryan thoughts in his head: nervousness scattered through seeing him and Ryan both. I hope I don’t screw this up…What if they… what is going on???

Brendon had no idea what was going on and freaked. 

Spencer and Ryan only had to glance briefly at one another and then at Brendon before they came up with a plan simultaneously. Spencer took deep breaths and tried to clear his mind while Ryan got Brendon to focus. No easy task. 

“Calm down, please. Look at my mouth, focus. Stay calm. It’s ok.” Ryan repeated until Brendon stopped hyperventilating. 

Brent walked back in five minutes after Ryan had calmed Brendon down, carefully the same expression on his face as when he had left.

||

Brendon didn’t have the same history as they did and didn’t have much in the way of barriers, so they could hear him, see bits of what he saw, felt some of what he felt. 

It grated on Spencer to have to take in all of these sensory details that weren’t his, weren’t the muted flush of Ryan dancing around in his head. 

Spencer once asked Ryan, with words, because he needed something concrete, what it was like having him in Ryan’s head. 

He could feel Ryan slip into his private barriers to think this over, mull it. Ryan’s lips quirked up in a vague smile. Spencer blinked, waited. 

“Its like waves, coming in strong then going out, but always there,” he had explained, piecing his words together as Spencer worked the metaphor over in his mind. Ryan never asked Spencer what it was like for him. They both knew it didn’t really matter. They just were, end of story. Brendon though, Brendon is what Spencer thinks fireworks would be like if they were always going off. 

The way fabrics felt against his (Brendon’s) skin, the way certain flavors were to his mouth (Brendon), the luxurious way that coffee tasted first thing in the morning that Spencer and Ryan get with ghost taste buds. How sound would become feedback through Brendon if Spencer listened in too long. 

He wouldn’t shut Brendon out. He couldn’t, not with Ryan anyway, and Ryan was similarly open with him. Trying to block Brendon seemed too cruel to Spencer, since he knows, like Ryan, that Brendon never asked for this. Not that they did either, but that’s beside the point. 

||

When he’s sure Brendon is done, Spencer slinks quietly into the bunk area. 

He doesn’t bother with opening his mouth, letting sound pour from him. He doesn’t need to. Neither does Brendon. That’s the whole point. 

Maybe you should put that sort of stuff behind a barrier next time, dude, he sends out, letting the irritable undertow ride along with the thought. 

Brendon does his best to look contrite but Spencer still catches the faint wisps of But what if I wanted you both to hear? that Brendon shoots back. 

He meticulously ignores this and slinks (never retreats, slinks) back into the lounge. 

||

Jon was radically different. 

He was kind and funny and calm and witty enough to go toe to toe with Ryan sometimes and generally pleasant to be around. He gave off an air of steadfast friendship, once it was given. 

Brendon took to him immediately. 

Spencer and Ryan spent a few hours one night when Brendon was out drinking with Tom and Jon and the rest of The Academy boys curled up on a couch in their hotel room discussing and deciding whether or not they liked him. They had no idea where Brent was, an increasingly common occurrence. Luckily for all of them, their decision was a positive one. 

Jon was never meant to be a permanent replacement. 

||

It’s not that Brent was that bad of a person, but that he wasn’t dealing well with the harsh glare of the limelight. He didn’t crave this chance at escape (didn’t have something to escape from, no skeletons in the form of bad fathers and suffocating religions in his closet) like Ryan and Brendon, didn’t want to follow the magical count of beats that were all his for an unknown stretch of time like Spencer did, still wanted to do. He was there with them from almost the beginning (for Ryan the beginning will always be that first stumble into a sandbox in high June, falling onto another boy. Spencer knows this because Ryan believes this.) but could never seem to want it that badly. 

Sometimes, late at night when he knows Ryan is curled into his own mind, dead asleep and Brendon’s mind is only a dull throb of movement, Spencer burrows deep into his barriers, where Brendon doesn’t know how to touch and Ryan knows not to follow, and thinks that maybe Brent leaving was their fault, that the three of them were too closed off for anyone else to possibly fit. 

Sometimes, he goes still further inside the barriers his mind that no one can get through and thinks about Brent’s smile, the way he laughed when he won a video game level after hours trying to beat it. The way his face pinched slightly whenever he read an article about them. The way his hands were soft yet rough whenever they brushed against Spencer’s to pass him a drink, equipment, magazines. 

Ryan had always made a point of ignoring Spencer whenever he studied Brent too long. It was his own way of letting Spencer know he was being too obvious. To think it to Spencer, or to even say it, would have made it real. 

It’s up to Spencer to call Brent (because Ryan never considered Brent his, saw the way Spencer looked at Brent, but could never slip far enough into Spencer’s mind to hear what he was thinking. Spencer knew how to hide things. These things made Brent Spencer’s in Ryan’s mind.), to be the voice of Ryan and Brendon who ping at each other a thousand different things to say in a matter of seconds before deciding on a sentence or ten, twenty, to tell him that he can’t be in the band anymore. 

When the call ends he clicks the speakerphone button off dully. 

Ryan smiled grimly at him, the way only Spencer knew he was smiling after years of deciphering facial expressions to match whatever Ryan felt like sending out: edges of his mouth shifted slightly upwards and the creases around his eyes deeper than usual. 

Spencer feels vaguely nauseous. 

||

It was six months after Jon came on tour with them as a replacement bassist and then as permanent bassist that he could hear them, speak with them with just thought and concentration. Typically, like most sources of frustration in Spencer’s life that weren’t reporters looking for a story, it was all Brendon’s fault. 

Early in the mornings, Brendon is the loudest, before Ryan always has to snip at him to be quieter, when he’s had hours of the volume inside his head turned down. 

Brendon is rattling off in his mind the wonders of this particular new blend of coffee he’s trying, Ryan glancing at him every now and then, sending off a ‘mhm’ to show he’s listening. 

All of the sudden, Jon looks up from his cereal. 

“Guys, Brendon’s talking but his mouth isn’t moving. What’s going on?” he asks, half out loud and half in his mind, sending curls of anxiety and curiosity out with his thoughts. 

Spencer meets Ryan’s eyes and decides to handle this proactively. 

“It’s ok. Calm down, please. Look at my mouth, focus. It’s ok,” he mirrors Ryan, all those months ago and he knows Ryan is doing something like this to Brendon, telling him to put up barriers until Jon is used to this, ok? Spencer flicks his eyes to Brendon as he hears this, then back to Jon. 

||

After Jon calms down, Ryan coaching him on putting up walls, he thinks to them Tom and I can do this too. We thought we were the only ones. Apparently Jon and Tom never wanted barriers. Ryan has an inscrutable look on his face upon hearing this, which Spencer, for all he knows about Ryan, can’t place. 

Brendon is happy that he can share this with Jon so that they can all have inside jokes out loud and in private at the same time now. Brendon is always happy to share. 

Spencer maybe hears the faintest whisper of ‘Brent’ at the end of Jon’s last public thought to them. 

He ignores it. 

||

Like everything else in Spencer’s life, the orgy wasn’t planned. Spencer is learning to live with the unplanned.

Brendon teaches him that Ryan isn’t the only one with a vision. Jon is the one who sustains them, Spencer himself carefully plotting everything out, making sure their visions are attainable. 

||

They had always been tactile with each other, had never really been uncomfortable being in each other’s personal space. 

This would have been fine, but Brendon’s throwaway thought months ago came back to haunt them. 

He’s jerking off again, the rest of them in very similar positions the last time he did it and broadcast his thoughts for all to hear. 

This is Jon’s first time hearing it though, as Spencer can tell from the pink tinge to his cheeks and neck. He deliberately blocks both Spencer and Ryan out though. Spencer pities him in this moment. 

What is going on? he asks, looking at both of them oddly. 

Ryan sighs; Brendon is jerking off and has his barriers down. He never does use them properly. 

Its then that things take a turn for the unusual: 

Ryan, god yes, harder, Jon, do that again, Spencer…Brendon sends, along with the edges of feeling from his orgasm. Even as muted as it is, it washes over them like a tidal wave. 

||

Jon is armfuls of feathers in his mind, brushing up against Spencer soft as pillows, but still there to support and warm. Jon’s presence soothes him. 

||

“We share each other’s minds, what could possibly be more intimate than that? Why not share this one last thing?” Brendon can’t understand it, from his defensive stance, shoulders hunched to his confused eyes. 

This is important enough to him that he’s using his voice, something he usually only does for interviews and warm-ups, singing. It surprised Spencer at first. The rest of the time, he’s going a million miles a minute inside their heads on every topic under the sun. 

Spencer wants to say words like ‘privacy’ and ‘boundaries’ but Brendon has always been more open with the world than either Ryan or Spencer. Boundless optimism has always been part of Brendon. Spencer knows that it’s different for Ryan: Ryan will always try to ferret out the lie, the trick to anything he does. Ryan has no use for gullibility. 

Spencer wants to buffer, intervene, but this is not the right time. Ryan needs to win this round. 

“How can you not get that people aren’t supposed to share every little thing about them? This could ruin everything!” Ryan is so close to raising his voice above its normal monotone that Spencer can feel it. Spencer almost never feels what Ryan feels. 

“I think we should ask Jon what he thinks.” Spencer interjects before Ryan becomes further undone. If Brendon is as receptive as he likes to think he is, he would feel how much he’s getting under Ryan’s skin. 

Jon looks like he’s caught in the headlights. 

“Would it really be that bad? We’re all pretty close right now, and I don’t think that would have to change. Why not try it and see how it goes?” he asks softly, always the calm voice of reason. 

Spencer knows it would be that bad because he’s had proper warning since Ryan was thirteen and perpetually irritable, that Ryan’s barriers become as flimsy as a spider’s web when he comes. He also knows how fiercely Ryan will defend those barriers. He’s always going to side with Ryan. 

It’s the look on Brendon’s face, and the faint slacking in something that would be a barrier if it wasn’t Brendon, that makes Spencer realize something. 

For Brendon, this debate is more than a way to have sex. There’s raw emotion coming from him that Spencer can only place as love. 

He sighs heavily, dramatically. “I think we should stop talking about this now. Lets just all get some distance,” he states, daring Brendon to disagree. 

||

Spencer and Ryan room together that night. Jon had wisely decided to take Brendon out for a drink, anywhere out of Ryan’s range. 

He watches Ryan unpack and start to get out the worn and true journal he’s had since before this tour started from the gilded mirror in a room that blends and spins to look like every other hotel room he’s ever been in. He wants something to hold onto. 

“I think that this is more than sex to Brendon. I think that if the sky falls and the oceans boil and he sees what you’ve kept locked away, all that hurt and inspiration and drive, he’ll still want to look at you over ridiculously high priced coffee and insanely sugary cereal. I can feel it from him,” Spencer’s voice is low, but still clear and sure. 

Ryan has stopped unpacking. 

But what if he does? You know how much the band, the words, the music means to me. You can’t know that he really feels that way. I can’t take that chance, Spence he says to Spencer, desperation and resoluteness blending into something awful. He can count the number of times Ryan has dropped the ‘r’ in his name in his entire life. 

What… what if you were to practice? Like when we get back to Vegas, when Brendon and Jon are out of range? Try and keep the barriers up as long as you could? You know I would never let anything I hear slip. Please Ryan, I really believe that he’s sincere. I think if we wanted to, this new … closeness could work. Spencer puts all of his scraps of optimism together, inflates his belief in Brendon to new heights, hoping that it convinces Ryan. He’s not sure why he’s on Brendon’s side now, but the damage is done. 

||

He is surprised that Ryan agrees to it.

They go slow, just touching each other, seeing the way their muscles flex and shift under skin over the bedspread. 

Ryan kisses Spencer like he writes: all concentration and nerve. 

They stay like that, connected at the mouth, impassioned and needy, for some time before Ryan starts moving his hands up and down Spencer’s body. Spencer expands to touching as well, needing to have permission first. 

Ryan works his hand between them, curls his fingers around Spencer, thumbing the slit. Spencer lets out a gasp and Ryan grins wide and feral before squeezing and working up a rhythm. They shift and slide and then Ryan is rutting against him, delicious friction coursing through their bodies.

Ryan is soon in him and melded with him, mind and body blurring to become something Spencer can and can’t recognize. He moves how Ryan wants him and so does Ryan, both thinking Ryan fuck me harder which makes Ryan pause but still thrusts deeper inside him. 

When Ryan shudder gasp releases, his barriers only flicker in strength, but Spencer’s come crashing down: a funhouse mirroring of their climax. He rushes to put them back up, but not before Ryan sees into his furthest barrier, sees all the little memories and thoughts of Brent that Spencer has had locked so far down it’s never seen the surface. 

Spencer comes gasping with feelings of bliss and dread making everything viscerally sharp. 

Ryan has a wry expression plastered on under layers of boneless happiness and sleepiness. “I think that went well,” he enthuses, glee peaking out under the edges of his monotone.

For a split second, Spencer wishes that their minds were private places. Their minds are still connected, so everything filters in. Ryan looks vaguely offended by this. “That’s what I mean,” he mutters. Ryan rolls his eyes in response. They both know that Spencer doesn’t really mean it, that to be alone like that would be traumatizing and horrific. 

Spencer knows that in time, Ryan will forgive him for his feelings for Brent.

||

Brendon is looking at them both with trepidation, as if Ryan will suddenly bolt, taking Spencer with him. Jon is rubbing circles into his shoulders, trying to make the tension bleed out. Spencer watches the way Jon’s hands knead into Brendon’s back, the way the fingers flex and the wrists work. 

Spencer knows that Brendon can only start things so far, and needs someone else to go the distance. That has to be him, now. 

He slides in front of Brendon, carefully takes Brendon’s face into his hands and starts to kiss him. Ryan watches with dark, silted eyes, desire and curiosity coming off him like heat waves. Jon keeps his hands on Brendon but they drift down, under his shirt, pulling it off. 

They all lose their clothes after that in a hazy rush that Spencer won’t quite remember come morning. 

Ryan is attacking Brendon with his mouth, fingers curling bruises into Jon’s arms with surprising strength for anyone besides Spencer. Jon fitting into Brendon with elation, Brendon gasping into Ryan’s mouth as Jon pushes in an in and in. 

Spencer watches this all with dazed interest like snapshots and a whirling still frame art student exhibition. This is where he fits into Ryan, behind and filling him, this is where Ryan is shouting his name with his mouth and mind, this is where Brendon arches into Jon and ruts against Ryan, this is where Jon catches his glance and Spencer feels on fire form Jon’s smoldering eyes. 

Who comes first and who bleeds into who Spencer doesn’t know. What he does know is that no one’s barriers have come crashing down like floodgates. 

What Spencer does know is that they can finally make it as a band. 

||

Brent snapped his eyes open, breathing heavily. 

Looking down, he saw that he had come all over his boxers. He sighed and reached for some tissues. The guys were having sex again, apparently. 

He had been able to read bits and pieces of Spencer and Brendon and Ryan’s minds since around the time he first met them. It spooked him out but then he got used to it when he realized that they could do the same thing. 

The three of them never really got that he could read their minds too. 

Brent sometimes thought there was more to the looks that Spencer would sometimes give him, the way Ryan would glance disapprovingly at Spencer if he caught him doing it. But Spencer always held things close to his chest, never gave away what he was feeling. 

He would occasionally get flurries of happiness, bits butterflies twisting up in his stomach from Spencer when they would hang out. He still doesn’t know what to make of them. 

He wonders sometimes if he had been able to talk back with them like they could, that maybe they could have worked out their problems, gone slower, took more time to fully conceptualize the band before being thrown to the media vultures. 

Seeing Jon like that makes him think of Tom, and what he was doing. He had heard that Tom was starting up a new band. Maybe he needed a bass player. Brent has been practicing. 

He still has various phone numbers from when they were all on tour. Maybe Brent will call him, say ‘hi’. Tom has nice eyes, nice hands. Spencer has nice hands, too.


End file.
